High cost of gasoline

[JerrySharrett]

Was an older tri gear 172 with a Continental engine in it. It was a DOG to fly in the summer months.

I loved to fly STOL stuff. I always wanted a Maule but didn't buy one when they were affordable. I flew a Super Cub one summer spotting fish for a company and it was fun; albeit small inside. Later, after seeing the movie Never Cry Wolf my want list now includes a Helio Stalion with a turbo prop in it.

I am at the age where I probably can still fly ok but @ 63 I don't have the nads I use to. I have thought from time to time that Crop Dusting might be fun to do. I know it is WORK but having watched them, I am sure I would have liked doing it.

After they put the 4 cylinder Lycoming in them they had a little more pep. The 182 was much much better.

That Helio could hang on the prop. Know what it would cost to annual that thing now?? A bunch.

Somebody made a STOL kit for the 182. That was fun.

 

[JerrySharrett]

Jerryy,back in 1966,i could buy a Cherokee 140 at $350,000 or a 200 Arrow at $510,000 or the 180 at $485,000
my have they gone out of sight.
Flying at Peidmont airlines was $15.00 per hour,wonder what it is now.

Rogee, is Piedmont Aviation still there (in Winston)? After Usless Air bought Piedmont Air I figured someone else ended up with Piedmont Av.

Yhea this thread should probably be in General but the bandwidth cost is the same.

Sides, we did mention the Hickory Egg Shoot. You be there Rogee??

 

[rhaney2]

Rogee, is Piedmont Aviation still there (in Winston)? After Usless Air bought Piedmont Air I figured someone else ended up with Piedmont Av.

Yhea this thread should probably be in General but the bandwidth cost is the same.

Sides, we did mention the Hickory Egg Shoot. You be there Rogee??

Well, sorta of,the airport is there,it's updated and much bigger,i don't know who owns what now.
Peidmont was a good company,they sold to a crappy company,US Air.
we had a lot of good times flying back in the mid 60's until i had a mayday and ole 3627 jueleit had a blown engine at 400 ft before touch down.
I quite flying after that,i had 22 hours logged,ran out of money and started a silly game of varmint/target shooting.

 

[Ron Hoehn]

Cost of fuel...

I don't like the cost of fuel any better than anyone else, BUT...
I got out of school and got married in 1960. In 1960, one of the best "blue collar" jobs a guy could have in St. Louis was working for A/B (Bush Brewery).
They made $2.72 / hour, or about $110 / week, plus a little overtime. Gas was about 27.9 / gal., so for an hours worth of labor you could purchase about 10 gallons of fuel. Nobody thought we were being raped by the big oil companies then...
Here we are, almost 50 years later, and the same workers at the brewery are making about $34.50 / hour, and able to buy 10 gallons of fuel for an hours worth of labor! I don't understand the problem. I think we have been spoiled for so long with the price of fuel being so low in relation to other things, that the shock of it all is what has us all in a uproar. Just something to think about.
And yes, I know there are prople working at Walmart making $8.47 an hour, and can only purchase less than 3 gallons of fuel for an hours labor, but there were people making .75 cents an hour in 1960 too, and could only buy the same amount of fuel then too.
Just to give you a "feel" for prices elsewhere, we were in Austria for the WBC in August. Fuel there was $1.32 Euro / liter. At about 3.5 liters per gallon, and the Euro worth over 1 1/2 times as much as the US dollar, fuel was over $7.00 / Gallon!!! They thought we were "dinggy" bitching about fuel at $2.79 a gallon!

 

[VaniB]

Heck yea, you can attribute the cost of gasoline to the increase in everything else too. Yea, I know the cost of copper is up, but that doesn't explain a 50% rise in the cost of primers. But, to truck the damn things and everything esle that is placed in the same carton with it, is costing!

I run a 1 ton service van that nets me 9.1 miles per gallon. When I drive 10 miles up the road one-way to a customer's house, and then 10 miles back to where I started, who do you think pays that $6.50 expense? You think I'm going to eat it out of my labor charges?

AND THAT is where where your inflation is coming from.

Due to the lack of courage of our politicians to stand up to the envirnmentalist wackos who have been dictating our energy policies and making us dependent to Hugo Chavez and the Arabs for our oil...... this is where we are, and where we will stay!

 

[maarten de ridd]

Ron,

in Belgium, fuel costed 0.5 EURO 10 years ago, and now about 1.30: it changes fast! so I keep on dreaming of an American V-8 bigblock for some time!
greetings from Belgium
Maarten De Ridder

 

[steve_podleski]

...
Most things today are cheaper then they were then. Things that seem expensive today are about the same -- just multiply by 10.

I think that you should multiply by 20. Have your wages increased by a factor of 20?

 

[Pete in Surry]

The big problem is

I think that you should multiply by 20. Have your wages increased by a factor of 20?

petrolium is traded in the comodities market. Those guys can trump up any excuse as to why petrolium is going to be more expensive in the future. If we want prices to be lower we must convince our government to remove petrolium from the comodities market.

 

[bob harrison]

Try USPSA.

One can shoot a $500 glock in 9mm and be competative at a national level. In fact, there are a few national champions that got that way shooting a box stock glock, or similar pistol. Of course, if one insists on spending $3,000+ for an open gun, you can do that too.

The point being that there is a division for the sky is the limit pistols and another division for box stock pistols. They shoot the same targets and stages, in the same match, but don't compete against each other.
Bob

 

[greg]

Ron..

I don't like the cost of fuel any better than anyone else, BUT...
I got out of school and got married in 1960. In 1960, one of the best "blue collar" jobs a guy could have in St. Louis was working for A/B (Bush Brewery).
They made $2.72 / hour, or about $110 / week, plus a little overtime. Gas was about 27.9 / gal., so for an hours worth of labor you could purchase about 10 gallons of fuel. Nobody thought we were being raped by the big oil companies then...
Here we are, almost 50 years later, and the same workers at the brewery are making about $34.50 / hour, and able to buy 10 gallons of fuel for an hours worth of labor! I don't understand the problem. I think we have been spoiled for so long with the price of fuel being so low in relation to other things, that the shock of it all is what has us all in a uproar. Just something to think about.
And yes, I know there are prople working at Walmart making $8.47 an hour, and can only purchase less than 3 gallons of fuel for an hours labor, but there were people making .75 cents an hour in 1960 too, and could only buy the same amount of fuel then too.
Just to give you a "feel" for prices elsewhere, we were in Austria for the WBC in August. Fuel there was $1.32 Euro / liter. At about 3.5 liters per gallon, and the Euro worth over 1 1/2 times as much as the US dollar, fuel was over $7.00 / Gallon!!! They thought we were "dinggy" bitching about fuel at $2.79 a gallon!

all well and good but look at the market in a lot of goods and services...electronics, clothing, helpdesk services...through a combination of outsourcing and productivity gains, real prices have declined substantially. Oil historically sold for about 3 times extraction costs. With vast improvements in technology of extraction that should be in the $60 per barrel range. The difference is pure commodity speculation, an activity that is decimating vast numbers of Americans. Of course, there is a significant difference of opinion as to whether speculation is good, or even ethical in such a sensitive commodity affecting the lives and health of so many human beings (ps I'm a registered Republican). --Greg

 

[J. Pendergraft]

Taxes And More Taxes

I don't think anyone mentioned that more than 50% of today's wages go to pay some form of taxes. I don't know what percent it was 40 years ago but I bet a lot less percentage than today. The way things look now 40 years from now they will take 75% for taxes. It doesn't look good for future generations.

 

[Pete Wass]

IBS has a class

Try USPSA.

One can shoot a $500 glock in 9mm and be competative at a national level. In fact, there are a few national champions that got that way shooting a box stock glock, or similar pistol. Of course, if one insists on spending $3,000+ for an open gun, you can do that too.

The point being that there is a division for the sky is the limit pistols and another division for box stock pistols. They shoot the same targets and stages, in the same match, but don't compete against each other.
Bob

Factory, which is the equivilent to the Glock you mention. Often there will be one and sometimes two guys show up with their "Tuned Up" factory rifles. They usually don't keep showing up with their factory rifles. Most of them either don't come back because it is tough to do or they buy a bench Gun and come back with it.

Benchrest is a strange game. One must either love the challenge of it or one won't continue to do it. Hitting a 1/16 th dot 25 times @ 100 yds. is a tough thing to do. One must be very close to doing that number to win a VFS match today. It takes commitment and a damn good barrel to do it.

 

[Wilbur]

Back to houses

I bought some cheap levels and glued them to the corners of my house some six years ago. When my house "commits" to the direction it plans to fall, I figure I can prop it up once and get us to the end. Based on my experience with old barns, regardless of what it looks like, you can always find a dry place big enough to put a bed and a TV.

 

[VaniB]

I don't think anyone mentioned that more than 50% of today's wages go to pay some form of taxes. I don't know what percent it was 40 years ago but I bet a lot less percentage than today. The way things look now 40 years from now they will take 75% for taxes. It doesn't look good for future generations.[/QUOTE]


Don't worry. Hard to believe that a lot of the great America that I knew is of very clear images and memories from 35- 45 years ago. The current generation and others to follow won't know the difference if we don't tell em. (We'll be dead and buried and won't be around to tell them).